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Omar Artan was to be the first Somali to referee at the World Cup finals. A Fifa-certified referee since 2018, Artan officiated at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2023 and was named the 2025 Confederation of African Football men’s referee of the year. Last weekend, as we know, Artan was denied entry to the United States at Miami international airport.
The US has not officially given a reason for Artan’s ban, but we know that Somalia is one of the countries on Donald Trump’s travel ban list. After the news reverberated around the world, an administration source, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed the move came about because Artan had possible links to possible terrorists. But that claim, in the face of a furore, merits widespread scepticism. There is a word for this: racism.
For this disgraceful decision is just the tip of the iceberg. Somalia is one of 39 countries – including Laos, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and South Sudan – on a US travel ban list. This means fans from more than a quarter of the countries taking part in the World Cup are facing visa rejections and restrictions; so much for Fifa’s claim that “football unites the world”. The World Cup is meant to bring people together, but this year’s tournament threatens to drive people apart.
This is what happens when a World Cup is cohosted by an administration that divides, detains and deports at will. International organisations have been sounding the alarm for months about this tournament – and a human rights emergency that extends far beyond match officials, to players, fans and residents alike. According to a recent report by Amnesty International, the “starkest threat” at the World Cup, cohosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, is posed by “the machine of abusive, discriminatory and deadly immigration enforcement and mass detention in the USA”.
We all saw the footage in January of an Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE) agent shooting dead Renee Good. Two weeks later, ICE agents claimed another victim: Alex Pretti. These are just two high-profile incidents; at least 17 people have died in ICE custody this year. In June last year, the US moved to deport more than 500,000 legal immigrants – six times the number of people who will watch the World Cup final in the MetLife stadium in New York. The acting director of ICE has said that the agency will be “a key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup”.
So far, neither Fifa nor the US have offered any assurance that fans will be safe from unlawful detention, raids or deportation. Nor have they provided satisfactory answers to a range of other concerns raised by Amnesty: severe restrictions on peaceful protest; the further displacement of homeless people; the expansion of mass surveillance; and doubts over the ability of the US to provide the “safe, welcoming and inclusive” tournament promised by Fifa, particularly to members of the LGBTQ+ community.
When Qatar held the World Cup four years ago, I joined human rights organisations in raising concerns over freedom of expression, LGBTQ+ rights and the appalling exploitation of workers, many of whom died while building the tournament’s infrastructure. I cannot help but notice the deafening silence of those – including our prime minister – who spoke out four years ago. The double standards are astounding, and expose the cowardice of those who defend human rights only when it is convenient to do so.
This is a rank hypocrisy that has helped justify horrendous complicity in some of the worst crimes imaginable. Since Trump was awarded the newly created Fifa Peace prize in December 2025, the US government has illegally kidnapped the president of Venezuela, waged an illegal war on Iran and deepened its criminal blockade on Cuba. In all three cases, the US has relied on the moral cowardice of our own government, which has failed to condemn the abduction of a head of state, allowed the use of its airbases for strikes on Iran, and abandoned the Cuban people in their time of need. That’s quite the hat-trick. That’s without mentioning the UK’s participation, alongside the US, in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“I’m not responsible for America’s immigration policy.” That is what government minister Liz Kendall said this week, in response to a question about Omar Artan’s ban. That’s true. But so is this: part of the reason the US shows such flagrant disregard for human rights is because it enjoys the blissful silence from governments like our own.
I love football, but it is a game. People’s lives are not. It is time this government had the courage to blow the whistle on a foreign policy of appeasement, cowardice and hypocrisy – and started defending the human rights of everyone, everywhere.
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Jeremy Corbyn is the MP for Islington North and parliamentary leader of Your Party. He was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020
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